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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021959">Identity (or Lack Thereof)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/thunder_and_stars'>thunder_and_stars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Campaign 05: A Crown of Candy, Canonical Character Death, Death, Episode: c05e06 A Crown of Candy: Chaos in the Cathedral, Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Survivor Guilt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:21:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,272</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26021959</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/thunder_and_stars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam Wilhelmina was a seed guy, not a war guy.</p><p>That Liam is gone. He doesn't know who he is, just that he is filled with rage and grief like nothing he has felt before. He thinks he might be a war guy now, and he doesn't know what to make of that. He doesn't have it in him to care, after everything that happened.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Liam Wilhelmina Jawbreaker &amp; Peppermint Preston</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Identity (or Lack Thereof)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Spoilers for episode 6.</p><p>I still have many feelings about this show and I am slowly working through them by writing. It is also midnight and I am exhausted, so please excuse anything that seems horrendously wrong.</p><p>I only know how to write angst that is probably out of character, but I'm posting it anyway, so I hope you enjoy it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Liam was not a war guy. For the longest time, that was what he knew. He was a seed guy, not a war guy, and he would rather spend his time in the woods with Preston than talking to people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was fairly certain that they all hated him in the castle, so it wouldn’t matter if he left to spend his days in the woods. He left notes for Theo to find, because he was also fairly certain that the gummy knight didn’t completely hate him, and he at least wanted to know where Liam was when he left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Theo wasn’t as much a war guy as he was a protector, and Liam understood that, in a way. Theo kept the others safe. It was what he did. The king was a war guy, and Liam wasn’t sure about the princesses yet. So he spent his time in the trees, looking for seeds with his companion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The peppermint pig liked the seeds as well, and they were a good pair. Liam didn’t have friends, and his family never had much time for him, but he had Preston. He only needed Preston.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The twins were nice to him, treated him like family, and the king was a good man, as was Theo. The chancellor was different. Liam didn’t know what to make of him. He was certain that the chancellor hated him, just as he was certain everyone hated him, so it wasn’t the most pressing concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Liam never really felt included, up until when he was arrested for using magic to save the king, and they promised they would help him. He hated the feeling, hated that it was so new and comforting that Amethar promised to help him and Theo went with him to the cell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then came the battle, and it wasn’t the first they had ever been in, but it came so suddenly, and it came because suddenly the entire world was torn out from under their feet, all they knew to be true proved incorrect. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man from the second of their battles was there, the carrot man from the tourney where they had tried to kill King Amethar, and he remembered Liam. Liam barely processed the heavy mace slamming into his chest, shattering his ribcage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, however, process Lapin moving in front of him. Lapin sacrificing himself for Liam. More of the fight passed, all a blur, and they were trying to break a window, but it was so hard, and so much was happening, and then Lapin was down, lying on the ground, dying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lapin was a good man, Liam finally decided, wishing he had seen it sooner, and Lapin had saved him, so he sent Preston down to help the chancellor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even in the thick of the fight, Liam could hear the mace crashing down, could hear Preston’s cries as they hit his companion, and he knew that his pig, his only friend, was dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t think. The window was broken <em>(When did they break the window?)</em> and the others were there. He vaguely registered Jet, wrapping her arms around him, jumping out the window, pulling him with her, and pain shocked through his chest as they hit the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were on the ground outside, and they were all there -- <em>no, they weren’t,</em> because Lapin was inside, <em>dying</em>, and Preston was <em>gone</em>. They could see the scene inside through high stained glass windows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They saw the mace crash down one last time, and the spray of chocolate across the inside of a place that Liam once would have considered holy, even sacred. They didn’t have the time to stop, to get the bodies, to do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They had to <em>run</em>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So they ran, ignoring how they were all so injured, ignoring the loss as best they could, and Liam didn’t even realize he was crying until he reached up to brush his hair back and his cheek was damp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His chest ached, shattered ribs protesting each step they ran, but they couldn’t stop. He thought of Preston, of first getting the young peppermint piglet when he himself was nothing but a young peppermint boy. He thought of all the times in the woods, searching for seeds with his steadfast companion, his only friend for so many years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He even thought of Lapin, how he hadn’t liked the chancellor, and his mind stuck like a broken record, a jammed reel of film, flickering between the images of Preston and the chocolate paw of the chancellor moving him away, taking the blows meant for Liam.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The chancellor had died for him, died to save him, all because he cast a stupid spell at the tourney. He had cast it because he was just a child, impulsive and reckless, and he didn’t understand the politics of high society, and someone had hurt Amethar, tried to kill one of the first people to ever show Liam kindness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lapin was dead, and Preston was dead, and Liam was alive, and it was his fault they were both gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They kept running, all following Jet, who had somehow taken the lead, and they found Thad in the alley where she had left him, and Liam wasn’t sure what happened until he hit the avocado because he was hurt and exhausted and someone had just <em>killed his best friend</em>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was suddenly so much guilt and sorrow and anger inside him, but it all fueled into rage, and he needed an outlet, needed something that didn’t remind him of what he had lost. He just wanted to hurt everyone, everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They deserved to feel how he felt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ruby disguised herself as Thad, and conversation carried on around him, somber but filled with the last chance shenanigans of teenagers who had almost died, but he couldn’t join in. His chest hurt, but nothing hurt as much as the gaping hole in him, the most important creature in his life ripped away so ruthlessly, and he was <em>just a child</em>, and he didn’t know what to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t know who he was anymore, filled with all that rage. Preston was dead because he had sent him over, because he had angered the carrot man, because he had done magic and put his family in jeopardy. Lapin had died because he put himself in front of Liam.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was so much guilt, because deep in his heart, Liam knew he should be the one who was dead, and maybe the others would have been happier like that. They barely knew him, a distant cousin sent there as a ward. They all knew Lapin for years, and he doesn't understand why the chancellor saved him. He doesn't think he would have minded dying there, with Preston, because it feels like he did die, except now he still has to live without them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should be the one gone. He wishes he were, because he doesn’t know who he is without Preston. He caused their deaths, and he’s so angry that he just wants to hurt everyone, wants to kill the <em>stupid carrot</em> that hurt <em>his family</em>, and he doesn’t care if he dies in the process.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s a war guy now. He doesn’t know what to do with that, so he embraces it, because he needs some form of identity as his, or else he would be lost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His friend is gone, and Liam Wilhelmina, the seed guy, is gone with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t know who this Liam is. He can’t quite find it in him to care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Liam is broken, and he doesn’t think anybody quite sees.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! </p><p>Comments or kudos mean a lot, but even if you don't leave either, thanks for reading.</p><p>It's good to know that there are other people who care about this show.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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